The document discusses speech, language, and communication needs (SLCN) in school-aged children in the UK, highlighting that they can exhibit diverse difficulties. It distinguishes between speech production, language comprehension, and communication skills, emphasizing that while many children with speech difficulties are easily identified, those with only language impairments may be overlooked. Finally, it notes that speech, language, and communication can be interrelated yet separate, illustrating the complexities involved in diagnosing and supporting affected children.

1. Speech, language and
communication
Dr Courtenay Frazier Norbury
Royal Holloway, University of London

2. • In the UK, many school-aged children with
language impairment come under the umbrella
term SLCN, or speech, language and
communication needs (Lindsay, 2011).
• This encompasses an extremely variable group of
young people with often quite different needs.
• Here I will try to explain the difference between
speech, language and communication, and how
they go together.
Photo from:
http://www.talkingpoint.org.uk/en/Parent/Speech%20and%20Language/How%20SLCN%20are%20supported.aspx

3. • SPEECH: also referred to as ‘articulation’ or
‘intelligibility’ describes how accurately children
produce speech sounds.
• Young children often make speech errors, for example,
‘gog’ instead of ‘dog’ or ‘nake’ instead of ‘snake’.
• However, by the time a child gets to school, these sorts
of errors are rare and most of what the child says
should be easily understood by unfamiliar people
(http://www.asha.org/public/speech/speech-
referral.htm)
• If not, important to seek advice for speech disorders as
speech problems can be associated with difficulties in
learning to read (Nathan, Stackhouse, Goulandris,
Snowling, 2006).

4. • LANGUAGE = the words we use, and how we put
those words together to convey a meaningful
message.
• Children with language impairments can have
difficulties with all of these processes.
• They may produce short, simple sentences and they
may be confused by complex sentence structures .
For example, if they hear ‘the
elephant was pushed by the
boy’ they may think the
elephant was the one pushing!
(Bishop, 1982).

5. • Sometimes children have both speech and
language difficulties.
• Children with speech difficulties are far more likely
to be noticed by parents and teachers, and much
more likely to be referred to speech-language
therapy (Bishop & Hayiou-Thomas, 2007) .
• But speech and language difficulties don’t always
go together (Shriberg, Tomblin & McSweeney,
1999).
• This means that many children with language
impairments might be missed in the classroom,
especially if their speech is easy to understand
(Zhang & Tomblin, 2000).

6. • Obviously difficulties with speech and language may affect
COMMUNICATION, but often these children can get their
message across, for example by using gesture, facial
expressions or showing people what they are trying to say
(Iverson & Braddock, 2011).

7. • On the other hand, some children have perfectly clear speech
and quite sophisticated language, but nevertheless have
problems communicating (Boucher, 2012).
• Children with autism spectrum disorders often have this profile;
they may not respond appropriately to what other people say,
may go off on tangents, or fail to go beyond the literal
meanings of words to make a joke or an inference (Volden &
Phillips, 2009).
E.g. Q: “What did you think of Lucy?”
A: “I found her very cold”

8. The bottom line
• Although speech, language and communication
frequently go together, they can come apart.
• While speech problems are easy to spot, we should
be alert to subtle problems with language and
communication in those with clear speech.

9. For references please see:
http://www.slideshare.net/RALLICampaign/cn-slcn-17230953